Schriftbild Art Portfolio

Growing up in a family deeply immersed in the visual arts, the perpetual presence of hallowed halls of museums and galleries drove my rebellious self to all things textual, philosophical, and academic. Meanwhile, the undercurrent of consistent artistic expression continued to permeate my life. Gradually over several decades, both the artist and the writer merged to become me, like the words were my mind awaiting the body of my art so they could become corporeal.

My visual expression began with a fascination for the shape of words, the observation of details in both art and life, and its impact on perspective and the perception of an idea of reality and its associated concept of truth. It evolved into a multidimensional exploration of writing and visual aesthetics. I paint my writing and write my paintings to place a textually textured pattern upon the visual.

I primarily create my Schriftbilder with oil, polychrome and acrylic upon objects and repurposed antique canvases and frames. These materials and techniques allow me to directly incorporate the elements of art history and philosophy into the core concept of existentialism, and forces a desired multiplicity of roles (object, creator, viewer) onto the process of creation.

The texts in my Schriftbilder are not immediately graspable, thus allowing thoughts and meanings of the text to trickle out from the artist through the piece to the observer. This creates a space, which protects the artist from the casual observer, and allows the casual reader to choose whether they want to see letters only, or wish to decipher words or even entire sentences. To not read a text is a choice that has been removed from us, the chokehold of meaning blasted on billboards are almost as immediate as images themselves.

Through setting-affected lettering of fragmented phrases, essays and streams of consciousness about concepts of materiality and existentialism, I aim to evoke a questioning of paradigms of art narratives. I wish for the viewer to contemplate the complexities of the self in relation to existence by contextualising their perception to the object of art, and to evoke a grasp on true beauty through the practice of deep observation of existence in patterns and the integrity of materiality.